Push-up tubes have become increasingly popular in stationary and cosmetics industry. The major role of these push up tubes is to deliver the sticky substance to a targeted surface and at the same time preventing that such substance does not come in contact with the hands/fingers of the user. Two successful implementations of the push-up tubes are lipsticks and glue sticks.
Most of the times these objects are rendered useless before they are used in their entirety. This happens due to various reasons. One being that the closing means of such objects are usually small and often rollable and they are often misplaced and not re-engaged with the body of the object. The usable life of the object is reduced if they have a missing closing means.
It is always desirable to make our daily use articles as multipurpose. First of all, a multipurpose object save storage space especially in an environment where efficient use of space is desirable like an office desk, pen stand, hand bags or a dressing table. Secondly, such a multipurpose article is less likely to misplaced, since its frequency of use of the multipurpose article is increased.
Two of most frequently used stationary items are glue stick and highlighter. Today these two items are separately available in market. Now there exists no motivation to combine these different articles, since, though they are used in the same set ups, their requirements with respect to the closure caps are unique. The Glue stick closure cap is required to be circular or triangular depending on the shape of the stick, the cap is required to enclose the stick without coming in contact with the glue. Whereas the highlighter cap is required to maintain an airtight chamber after closure of the cap since the highlighter ink is highly evaporable and has to have an airtight closure mechanism. The highlighter pens need to be closed with air tight cap because any contact with air vaporise the ink and the pen will go dry. Many times the ink dries up if the cap is loose or if the cap gets misplaced.
Yet another problem that exists especially with glue sticks is their undesirable placement in a Pen Holder/stand. A Pen holder is generally at least 4 inches high, this is because it is meant to rest general stationary items like Pen, pencils, scissors, cutters, highlighter pens and highlighters which are usually no less than 5 inches long. Shorter height of the pen holder allows the stationary items to rest within the pen holder and also project out and lean on the side wall of such pend holder, which makes them easily visible and allows them to be picked up conveniently by the user. At the same time the glue-stick which is also a stationary article used within the same set up is no longer than 2.75 to 3.5 inches. The shorter height of the glue stick allows it to assume a horizontal position in a pen holder thereby not only preventing the other stationary items to rest at the base, but making it difficult for the user to pick it up as the user has to take out all other article before he is able to catch hold of the glue stick.
Besides while the glue stick and highlighter are separate items, the user has to take care of two different items and it increases the inventory of stationary to be maintained. Moreover, one needs to be very organised with the caps of these items since the small/rollable caps are readily misplaced and being careless in capping the items will render the item useless. Such problem may be also experienced with other consumable items. For e.g. cosmetics a lipstick and eyeliner are frequently used cosmetic products. Also a lip gloss and lip liner are frequently used and possess similar set of technical problems.
What is needed is an integrated model of two frequently used consumable articles. The integration has to be such that it facilitates greater speed of work, prevents one being stranded in the middle of a job because one of the article is not available.
The present subject matter is directed to an apparatus which solves above problems. Other objects, advantages and novel features will become apparent from the following detailed description of the subject matter when considered in conjugation with appended drawings.